Timeful Review: After 3 Months

TL;DR version below

Creepy predictive. Unrelenting personal assistant. Crazy productive.

My usage of Timeful could be summed up with those three phrases.

When I started using it, I decided to turn on the suggestions to the max (if I could, I would have gone to 11). Almost instantly, Timeful started giving me suggestions of all the habits and task I wanted to do. When it did this, I promptly either 1) rejected them or 2) rescheduled them.

For two weeks I used only this app and none of my other to-do apps (like Omnifocus, Asana, Zippy). Everyday I would plan out my to-dos and then promptly begin rejecting the suggestions that Timeful placed in my schedule. For a while, I felt that the app was a gimmick at best. It was was nothing more than a cheap UI over the iPhone's calendar and reminders.

Then things got spooky.

Unlike others whose schedule is devoted to one job all day, I split my day between two. My job and my business. The hours between 7AM-5PM belongs to my job. A few hours at night and some hours on the weekend belong to my business. This is where Timeful got spooky.

Toward the middle of the second week, I started noticing Timeful suggestions for my business to-dos during the time I normally work them. Mind you, I didn't manually place them their, Timeful did. That might not be impressive, but then I noticed other habits appearing around my lunch time at work. This meant that I did more business work when I was off the clock at work during the day. I was no longer cramming my business in the span of a few hours during the night. Suddenly, I felt that Timeful became a personal assistant rather than a fancy UI over iPhone calender and reminders.

What I did notice, is that Timeful remembers what time you complete certain task. Obviously, I did some business task during my lunch time, so after a few days of this, Timeful started placing other task there. I also found myself not rejecting as many suggestions as before since Timeful was "smarter" than before.

Its really cool to list all my to do for the next day. Go to sleep. Then the next morning open Timeful and see it populate my day with it's suggestions. Now, I tend to follow its advice, and I am a hell of a lot more productive. It is seriously like having a personal assistant that maps out your day, but for free.

Of course, there are some things I would like to see in future updates:

1. A web interface, this would be easier to add multiple task during my day instead of being constantly glued to my phone.
2. Landscape view to see the week ahead.
3. Able to track projects or at least tag task to certain projects.

Seriously I would pay for those features.

Right now, I use Evernote and Timeful. 

I track my projects using Evernote and any task related to a certain project, I simply paste the link in the note section in Timeful and follow a naming structure (i.e, PROJECT: TASK). Not the cleanest or slickest way, but it gets the job done.

Overall, Timeful is finally the to-do app I've been looking for. It is lightweight, fast, and smart. It did what the creators said it would do. Make us more productive. 

TL;DR VERSION

Get Timeful. Use it for two to three weeks. Don't cheat on it during that time by going to another to-do app. You can reject Timeful suggestions but try your best to reschedule them. Use Evernote to track projects. Understand Timeful will be clunky in the beginning, but like anything, the more you use it, the better it is. 

Timeful: Time Management for the Stressed

Like many people I struggle with too much to do and too little time. Each day is an epic battle between my dreams and what others require or ask me to do. I am swamped and at times feel like drowning in the depths of all the chaos that dwells behind every corner and lurks behind every email or phone call. 

"Can you do this? Can you take care of that? You need to do this. This is required ASAP!"

Haven't we heard all of this from either family, friends or employers? Each day is a fight. A stress fueled day of endless chaos and struggling to get a head. 

Like many others, I tried to find salvation in my gadgets and gizmos. Omnifocus, Zippy, Reminders, Remember the Milk, GTD, Evernote, Pen and Paper list, I can continue forever with the tweaks and hacks I've tried. Yet. Nothing has worked so far. 

No system, no gimmick, no hack, no rules, nothing. The wireless network went out, which sends me rushing to patch the issue while it destroys my Pomodoro. My son has a cold and I need to monitor his temperature, which knocks out my plan.  I got sick with the same cold, now my daily habits are all gone. I know sleep 8 1/2 hours day which kills my early morning routine.

Just like everyone else, we set out with good dreams and intentions. Yet, life always has something different.

So I decided to try a new app. Timeful. It combines iOS 7 reminders and calendar together. It offers an unique feature which the app will recommend task to do that you haven't scheduled. Its focus isn't on time management but brain management to quote David Kadavy.

I just got accepted into their Beta and I am trying to see how it fits in my life.

From the start, this isn't a project management tool, but could be used with Evernote to coordinate projects. It isn't a cheap gimmick to do list, because it allow scheduling and keeping on top of your events, meetings, and to dos. 

I am looking forward to using this tool more extensively in the next few weeks and will report back the observations.